HELEN MECHE, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
North America
BioAmber and Mitsui & Co. have partnered to build and operate a manufac-turing facility in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada.
The initial phase of the facility is expected to produce 17,000 metric tons of biosuc-cinic acid, and commercial production is anticipated in 2013. The partners intend to expand capacity and produce 35,000 metric tons of succinic acid and 23,000 metric tons of 1,4 butanediol (BDO) on the site. Bioamber and Mitsui also intend to jointly build and operate two additional facilities. These facilities, together with Sarnia, will have a total cumulative capac-ity of 165,000 tons of succinic acid and 123,000 tons of BDO. BioAmber will be the majority shareholder in the plants.
Additionally, the partners plan to build and operate a second plant in Thailand, which is projected to come online in 2014. They are undertaking a feasibility study for the Thailand plant with PTT MCC Biochem Co. Ltd., a joint venture established between Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. and PTT Public Co., Ltd. BioAm-ber and Mitsui & Co. also plan to build and operate a third plant, located in either North America or Brazil, that will be simi-lar in size to the Thailand project.
SNC-Lavalin has a major contract from an oil-sands mining producer to pro-vide engineering, procurement and con-struction (EPC) services for a froth-treat-ment plant in the Fort McMurray region of Canada. The contract value is in excess of $650 million. The froth-treatment plant will process 155,000 bpd of feedstock from the bitumen extraction plant in the form of bitumen froth.
The engineering phase is now under-way and construction is scheduled to begin in February 2012. Mechanical com-pletion for the construction is expected in September 2014.
GT Logistics, LLC (GTL) has began installing rail lines at its OmniPort loca-tion in Port Arthur, Texas. The OmniPort is expected to open for business in January 2012, serving as a multimodal terminal for crude oil and other products transported via rail, ship, barge and truck.
The $95 million, 1,100-acre facility neighbors refineries with over 1 million bpd of capacity, and multiple chemical and processing plants, and is located less than one mile from over 4 million bbl of petroleum product-storage capacity and pipelines serving the region.
The rail terminal, served by Union Pacific, will be able to receive unit train traf-fic, with 300 acres of rail-car storage onsite that will be capable of storing, switching and transloading over 1,000 rail cars. The rail terminal site also features a multibarge receiving dock on Taylor’s Bayou; conve-nient access to Highway 73 and Interstate 10; and connectivity to the region’s exten-sive network of pipelines. The initial phase of the rail, drainage and road improvement construction began earlier in the year and will be completed by the end of 2011.
Cheniere Energy Partners, L.P. has selected Bechtel to provide engineering, pro-curement and construction (EPC) services for two new liquefaction trains at the Sabine Pass liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. The project builds on Bechtel’s previous work at Sabine Pass, where the company designed, built and expanded the LNG receiving facility.
Bechtel will design, construct and commission the two liquefaction trains using ConocoPhillips’ Optimized Cas-cade technology. The liquefaction trains will be built next to the existing facilities at the Sabine Pass LNG terminal, which include five tanks with storage capacity of 16.9 billion ft3 equivalent, two docks that can handle vessels up to 265,000 m3 and vaporizers with regasification capacity of 4.0 billion cfd. Construction is expected to begin in 2012.
NRGreen Power and GE have plans for a new recovered energy project that will produce power without additional emis-sions using the first global application of GE’s innovative ORegen system. The tech-nology will be installed at Alliance Pipe-line’s Windfall Compressor Station near Whitecourt, Alberta, Canada, to generate electricity through the use of waste heat.
NRGreen Power Ltd. Partnership works to develop clean energy by
convert-ing waste heat generated at compressor stations along the Alliance Pipeline system to produce emission-free electric power.
The company has four waste-heat recov-ery units operational at Kerrobert, Lore-burn, Estlin and Alameda, Saskatchewan.
While its Whitecourt Recovered Energy Project (WREP) marks the company’s fifth waste-heat recovery installation, it is the first to use GE’s ORegen system. Con-struction of the WREP will commence in May 2012.
South America
MODEC, Inc., has commissioned a UOP Separex membrane system for cessing natural gas on a new floating pro-duction, storage and offloading (FPSO) ves-sel. The FPSO is using the Honeywell UOP Separex membrane system and adsorbents to remove carbon dioxide and water from 5 million standard m3/day of natural gas from the Lula oil field off the coast of Brazil.
The FPSO was commissioned in July 2011. A second FPSO, still in construc-tion and also using UOP Separex technol-ogy, is expected to be commissioned in September 2012.
The Lula oil field is said to contain the largest oil discovery in the Western Hemi-sphere in the last 30 years and is believed to contain 8.3 billion bbl of oil and natural
Trend analysis forecasting
Hydrocarbon Processing maintains an extensive database of historical HPI proj-ect information. The Boxscore Database is a 35-year compilation of projects by type, oper-ating company, licensor, engineering/construc-tor, location, etc. Many companies use the his-torical data for trending or sales forecasting.
The historical information is available in comma-delimited or Excel® and can be custom sorted to suit your needs. The cost depends on the size and complexity of the sort requested.
You can focus on a narrow request, such as the history of a particular type of project, or you can obtain the entire 35-year Boxscore database or portions thereof. Simply send a clear description of the data needed and receive a prompt cost quotation.
Contact: Lee Nichols
P.O. Box 2608, Houston, Texas, 77252-2608 713-525-4626 • [email protected]
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JANUARY 2012 HydrocarbonProcessing.comHPIN CONSTRUCTION
gas. The field is operated by Petrobras in partnership with BG and Galp.
Honeywell’s UOP Separex technology upgrades natural gas streams by remov-ing carbon dioxide and water vapor. These contaminants must be removed to meet the quality standards specified by pipeline transmission and distribution companies, as well as end users of the natural gas.
Haldor Topsøe has signed an agreement with Petrobras for the supply of critical equipment and materials for two SNOX plants. The plants will be installed at the new RNEST grassroots refinery in Pernam-buco, Brazil. The supply covers internals for 80 wet-gas sulfuric-acid (WSA) con-densers for condensation of sulfuric acid, eight units for acid mist control and a com-plete acid system.
In addition to treating the boiler flue gases, the SNOX plants will also treat Claus plant tail gases, amine gases con-taining hydrogen sulfide and sour-water stripper (SWS) gases containing ammonia.
These SNOX plants are designed for the possible elimination of the Claus plants, which then means that all the refinery’s sulfur compounds are converted into sul-furic acid.
The two SNOX plants will be installed in parallel and will each treat up to 650,000 Nm3/h of flue gas while produc-ing up to 750 metric tpd of sulfuric acid.
In addition to producing sulfuric acid, the SNOX plants will also export up to 100 ton/hour of high-pressure steam to the refinery steam grid.
The contract for basic engineering was signed with Petrobras earlier and has already been executed. The supply of equipment will take place during the com-ing 16 months, and startup of the SNOX plants is planned for 2013.
Europe
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has a contract to provide detailed engineering, procurement support and support services during construction of a new ester produc-tion plant at OXEA GmbH’s existing man-ufacturing facility in Oberhausen, Germany.
The Esterplant 2 project is part of OXEA’s strategy to expand global ester production capacity by 40% to meet the growing global demand for OXEA’s esters.
These specialty chemical products are replacing the traditional phthalate plasti-cizers. The fast-track project is expected to come onstream in 2012.
MAN Diesel & Turbo is installing a CHP cogeneration unit at the Rheinberg production plant of Solvin GmbH &
Co. KG, a joint enterprise of Solvay and BASF. The first of MAN’s new 6-MW gas turbines will be used commercially for the plant, which manufactures chemi-cal products including polyvinyl chloride (PVC). The new CHP plant is designed to supply 6 MW of electrical and 11 MW of thermal power, thus enabling Solvin to meet its own electricity requirements in the future.
ThyssenKrupp EPC contractors have supplied and commissioned a plant for producing 3,500 tpd of urea solution in Sluiskil, Netherlands, for Yara of Nor-way. The plant, which took three years to build, has now been handed over to the customer. Yara invested €400 million in its construction.
The plant meets the latest environ-mental standards, as well as the best avail-able technology standards. There are even special collection systems that, should the plant malfunction, ensure that no haz-ardous substances escape into the envi-ronment. What really makes the plant so remarkable, though, is that some of the urea it produces will not be used as fertilizer but as an aqueous urea solution to treat die-sel exhaust fumes. This technology, known as AdBlue, reduces NOx emissions.
The technology was licensed by Stami-carbon. ThyssenKrupp Uhde was respon-sible for the engineering, equipment supply and plant construction on a fixed-price, turnkey basis.
Neste Oil is building a system for recovering emissions released when load-ing ships at the harbor of its Porvoo refin-ery. The system, valued at approximately
€23 million, will recover the majority of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released into the atmosphere when load-ing gasoline.
The new system will reabsorb VOCs into gasoline during loading with the help of two absorption tanks and related equip-ment at the harbor, after which the gasoline used will be returned to the refinery for re-use. A similar system is already in use when loading tanker trucks at the Porvoo refinery’s distribution terminal.
Construction work on the VOC recov-ery system began in October 2011 and the facility is due to be commissioned in the latter half of 2013.
Africa
Kenya Petroleum Refineries Ltd.
(KPRL) has implemented a new solution from IBM to increase the productivity and efficiency of the company’s oil refinery operations in East Africa. The agreement was finalized by IBM’s business partners Computer Source Point Ltd. and Pow-ertech IST Data. The new IBM solution will allow KPRL to manage, measure and track the life cycle of its oil-processing equipment such as pipes, heat exchangers, pumps, valves, boilers, furnaces, compres-sors, tanks and turbines.
Niger Delta Petroleum Resources Ltd. (NDPR), the fully owned subsid-iary of Niger Delta Exploration & Pro-duction Plc (NDEP), has been granted a license to operate (LTO) the Ogbele mini refinery. This license, granted by the fed-eral government of Nigeria, is said to be the first of its kind to be granted to an independent, publicly owned Nigerian company. It gives NDPR full authority to operate its mini diesel refinery (topping plant) at the Ogbele Field in old OML 54 (Rivers State).
The LTO will make NDPR’s mini diesel refinery the first independently owned and fully operational diesel refinery in Nige-ria. The refinery has an initial capacity of 1,000 bpd. It commenced production in December 2010, using crude-oil feed from NDPR’s existing Ogbele flowstation.
Middle East
Tecnimont S.p.A., the main operating company of Maire Tecnimont S.p.A., has an engineering procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) contract on a lump-sum turnkey basis for a new fertil-izers complex within the existing industrial area in the Aswan Governorship in Upper Egypt, from the Egyptian Chemical &
Fertilizers Industries–KIMA.
The fertilizers complex will comprise an 1,200-tpd-capacity ammonia-produc-tion unit, implementing KBR’s Purifier technology; one 1,575-tpd-capacity urea-melt production unit, implementing Sta-micarbon’s Pool Reactor technology; one 1,575-tpd-capacity urea-granulation unit, implementing Stamicarbon’s urea-gran-ulation technology; and all the necessary utilities and offsite facilities to support the process units.
The overall project value is approxi-mately $540 million and completion is expected by the end of July 2014.
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Toyo Engineering Corp. was awarded an energy optimization project for one of SABIC’s existing ammonia plant and package boilers at the Al-Jubail Fertilizer Co. (Al-Bayroni) in the eastern region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The plant, which has a production capacity of 1,300 metric tpd of ammonia, has been in operation since 1983. Toyo will reduce and optimize the energy consump-tion in similar ammonia plants and package boilers. Project implementation is sched-uled to be completed in the second quar-ter of 2013. Toyo’s scope of work includes engineering, procurement, construction, pre-commissioning and commissioning assistance on a lump-sum turnkey basis.
Qatar National Facilities Services, a Qatari-based company partly owned by Fluor, has signed a five-year comprehensive maintenance-services contract with RasGas in the industrial city of Ras Laffan, Qatar.
The contract was awarded to provide main-tenance services for the entire complex.
Fluor previously completed the RL3 Common Offplot project for RasGas in 2009. For that project, Fluor trained more than 62,000 different workers from 40 different countries at the site, with peak construction manpower reaching nearly 9,000 workers in January 2008.
Cellier Activity of ABB France’s Pro-cess Automation Division has started up a new lube-oil blending plant (LOBP) for Petromin Corp. in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Cellier Activity was responsible for the detailed engineering and procurement, mechanical and electrical site supervi-sion, along with commissioning of the core process equipment. The scope of supply included both batch- and inline-blending technologies. The new facility is automated, and plant-wide activities are managed by a Lubcel control system to ensure process flexibility and safety.
With an annual capacity of 125,000 tons of lubricating oils per shift, the new facility is able to produce a wide range of automotive and industrial oils, and is reportedly one of the largest LOBPs in the Middle East.
North Refineries Co. (NRC) has awarded Chiyoda Corp. a contract for replacement of furnaces at the North refinery in Baiji, Republic of Iraq.
The contract covers engineering, pro-curement and delivery of three sets of
fur-naces. Equipment delivery will be com-pleted in April 2013.
The North refinery in Baiji is said to be one of the largest refineries in the Republic of Iraq, constructed by Chiyoda in 1983 with a capacity of 150,000 bpd.
At the end of February 2011, hydrotreater furnaces at the North refinery were shut down by bomb blasts. NRC requested Chiyoda for planning assistance of short-term emergency measures, and Chiyoda was awarded the contract for the furnace-replacement work as a permanent solution through international tender.
Asia Pacific
Davy Process Technology Ltd., a Johnson Matthey company, and The Dow Chemical Co.’s Oxygenated Sol-vents Business, have announced that Wison (Nanjing) Clean Energy Co., Ltd., has selected LP Oxo SELECTOR 10 technology for its new oxo alcohols plant in Nanjing, China. With this licence, Wison Energy will build a LP Oxo plant with a capacity of 125 kiloton/
yr of 2-ethylhexanol and 125 kiloton/yr of butanols.
Wison Energy’s Nanjing plant operates a 600-kiloton/yr carbon-monoxide plant and supplies carbon-monoxide, synthe-sis gas, hydrogen and methanol to other facilities located in the Nanjing Chemical Industry Park.
Michelin Siam Co., Ltd., has awarded Technip a lump-sum turnkey engineer-ing, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for a new elastomer composite plant to be built in Southern Region Industrial Estate, Songkhla Province, Thailand.
The contract is in line with Tech-nip’s strategy to expand its business base, including its onshore segment. It covers preliminary engineering, detailed engi-neering, project management, procure-ment, construction, pre-commissioning and commissioning, and startup assis-tance. The plant will produce rubber composites.
Technip’s operating center in Bangkok, Thailand, will execute the contract, which is scheduled to be completed at the begin-ning of 2013. HP
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